Miami Marlins: Should we just give up on the 2020 MLB season?

It finally looks like there won’t be a 2020 MLB season for the Miami Marlins, the other 29 teams or the fans to enjoy.

I’m not ready to give up on baseball just yet, but I have to say the most recent discussions between MLB, the owners, and the players have left me a bit empty inside. As a Miami Marlins fan, that really hurts.

For whatever reason, it appears for the first time in my lifetime a full season of baseball will not be played. With the denouncement by the owners of a proposal 114-game season and the thought of only 50-games being played instead, I’m this close to wiping my hands of the entire situation.

Just like my friend Rick Ballou and Andrew Gibson, both of whom are radio personalities here in Jacksonville at 1010XL and 92.5 FM, I still need my MLB fix. There is no minor-league baseball this year, which means I will not see the Marlins minor-league affiliate, the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, play ball. I won’t have the ability to walk into a baseball stadium and enjoy the sights and sounds of America’s game. And I won’t be able to share moments and create memories with family and friends.

More from Marlins News

• Miami Marlins news: Another target gone
• Why didn’t the Miami Marlins sign JDM?
• Miami Marlins rejected Boston‘s trade offer
• Miami Marlins are pursuing Michael Conforto
• Miami Marlins need to spend to win

I don’t want to sound like I am giving a famous Patrick Henry-like speech, but the reality is, “Give me some meaning for baseball or give me nothing at all!”

The tennis match the MLBPA and the owners are playing is doing nothing to help begin the 2020 season. No matter how you spin this, determining which side is hurting the other the most, the real losers in all of this are the fans. Whether it would be watching games at home as a family or being allowed in the ballparks at some point this season, they are the ones who are getting worked over.

I was going to use another word, but for the sake of this being a family-friendly website, I thought better of it.

The thought of playing 50 baseball games does nothing for me. It may do something for other friends who just want the reality of being able to watch baseball, but records would mean nothing. There won’t be a legitimate home run winner. There won’t be a potential for a 20-win pitcher.

While my Miami Marlins could factor into a playoff race based on that short of a season, isn’t the team that hoists the World Series championship of other heads victorious with a tinted title? And wouldn’t there be an asterisk by the 2020 champion’s name?

And to think it took a pandemic and the fear of losing money to make us all forget about the Houston Astros and their 2017 scandal.

I had to throw that in there.

Unfortunately, what we have here is a failure to communicate. Grown men acting like children, waiting to get their way. Both sides are acting like the bully on the playground, but they are essentially forcing their hand on themselves in this situation.

It must stop in order to preserve the integrity of the game. If not this season, the next. Essentially, “If not now, then when?”

Enough with the clichés and the catchphrases that are abundant all over social media. MLB has a problem it must decide whether or not to fix. Do the figurehead’s of the League office side with team owners and exorbitant costs, or will some happy medium be reached?

We are already over three months into a nonexistent MLB season. Surely players and management can step aside and see how this is hurting the game not only for this season but potentially in years to come.

How Miami Marlins owner Derek Jeter and 29 other owners plan to resolve this issue so that there is either baseball this year or a clean slate for 2021 isn’t known yet.

What I do know is it with each passing day I am losing faith in the idea that baseball will be played this year. This seemed to be promising just a couple of weeks ago with a plan for half a season of balls and strikes It has become quite dicey. That’s not to say it can’t change, but at the moment what appeared to be inevitable is quickly becoming a formality for a lost season.

And for this writer, who is one of the biggest baseball fans there is, it’s almost to the point where shedding tears and then wiping my hands of the situation. It might be the best way to deal with a season that looks to be over before it starts up once again.